if it were in an imaginary straight line. Excepting lines 123–270, composed in the latter part of 1796, Coleridge wrote his contribution to _Joan of Arc_ between 1794 and 1795. _The Rose_ and _Kisses_ were written in 1793, and _On a Discovery Made Too Late_ in 1794. Could anybody, not knowing the dates, have believed that these three poems last-named, if not written before the _Joan of Arc_, were contemporaneous with it? In the _Joan of Arc_ Coleridge is immature and led astray by politics, religion, and philosophy, but in the three little poems where he has subjects akin to him he is perfect, and could have done nothing better ten years later. Still more remarkable, _Lewti_, in its earliest form, cannot have been written later than 1794, for it was originally addressed to Mary Evans, from whom Coleridge parted in December 1794. As an example of the survival of his poetic power take _Love’s First Hope_, written probably in 1824: ‘O fair is Love’s first hope to gentle mind! As Eve’s first star thro’ fleecy cloudlet peeping; And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind, O’er willowy meads, and shadow’d waters creeping, And Ceres’ golden field;—the sultry hind Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping.’ Coleridge was indebted to Sir Philip Sidney for the third and fourth lines, excepting ‘o’er willowy meads,’ but these three words and the first and last two lines are his own. Not only does his genius survive, but emotion as pure and deep as that of the Nether Stowey days or those preceding. There is no trace of the interval between them and those of 1824. * * * * * In the post-office at Kilve hangs an old trombone, a memento of the time when the village orchestra assisted in the service at the church. How well I remember those artists and their jealousies! The clarionet or ‘clarnet,’ as he called himself, caused much ill-feeling because he drowned the others, and the double-bass strove ineffectually to avenge himself. The churchyard yew is one of the largest I ever beheld—twenty feet in girth by measurement, four feet from the ground. A gay morning: heavy, white masses of clouds sailing over the hills; light most brilliant when the sun came out. How singularly beautiful is a definitely outlined white cloud when it is cut by the ridge of a hill! * * * * * Across the hills in a south-westerly storm of wind and rain to Bicknoller. A walk not to be forgotten: overcast sky, dark moors; clouds sweeping over them and obscuring them. I should not have found my way if I had not lost it when I went to Bicknoller before. I then put three stones at the point where I afterwards discovered I had gone astray. These three stones saved me to-day. * * * * *